The following is taken from the December 1998, Issue #24, of the Garden Gate magazine. Thought it might be of interest, it is taken from the magazine?s Tips & Techniques page, which publishes tips from readers. I have not used this, sounds intriguing, but will probably this year. - Toby
?You can never have too much of a good thing. And gardeners are almost always clamoring for clematis. Eva Smith of Oklahoma propagates her own by layering.
In late summer or early autumn, she digs two trenches only a couple of inches deep in opposite directions from the base of a well-established clematis plant, being careful not to disturb the roots. Then she removes two of the plants vines from their support and lays one down in each trench. Eva snips off all the leaves and covers, each trench with soil, mulches with compost and waters well. By the next spring, the clematis vines that she buried take root.
Eva says, ?Every place along the runner where I snip a leaf, it roots and puts up a shoot. And in my experience, all the new shoots bloom that spring.?
In the fall, each plant is ready to transplant to a different spot or to a friend?s garden. Each time she plants a new clematis, Eva mixes in a few handfuls of compost to improve soil texture and a cup of lime to bring up the pH of her acid soil.
To make transplanting easier, you could bury nursery pots in the soil and layer the clematis in the pots. Then you?d only have to dig up each plant in its container and cut through the parent vine stringing the plants together. ?
